The abandoned Japanese Sex Museum (a.k.a. the Mansion of the Hidden Treasure) first caught my attention in 2009 when I first started doing some research about haikyo on Japanese blogs. Three years ago the museum showed up on two or three homepages; both urbex and more general pop culture blogs. After that it basically disappeared, I haven’t seen pictures of the place ever since. So what happened? Boarded up? Security? Maybe demolition? Since *Michael* and I *were in the area anyways* we decided to find out, especially since the museum was pretty much on top of both of our “Places I Want To Explore” lists.
I guess the abandoned Japanese Sex Museum, along with the *Maya Hotel* and *Nara Dreamland*, was actually one of the locations that convinced me that Japan not only has abandoned places, but that it has some great ones. There are not that many sex museums in the world overall – so an abandoned sex museum is pretty unique! (Although “Abandoned erotic art museum” would be a slightly more correct name for the place now that I know what’s to find there.)
Opened on October 1st 1978 the Mansion of the Hidden Treasure was in business for almost 20 years before it was closed in the second half of 1997. Mansion of the Hidden Treasure is actually a great name since the exterior looks like a massive, old-style Japanese mansion, like a fortress almost. The entrance was guarded by a statue of Daikoku, the God of Great Darkness and one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. Opening hours were from 9 a.m. till 11 p.m. and the entrance fee was 1000 Yen according to a pamphlet that was lying around in an office room. Exploring the place further we found actual tickets with a printed price of 1300 Yen, so I guess the entrance fee was raised at least once during the 19 years of business. Several vending machines near the entrance and the exit offered all kinds of items, for example erotic playing cards and saucy postcards at the price of 300 Yen. One of the trashed rooms had a small stage and nearby we found a sign that said “Nude Show 2500 Yen”, so I guess it’s safe to say that there were live performances at the museum, too.
(If you are easily offended by sexual contents and you nevertheless read this far I strongly recommend to move on to another posting as from now the article will become a little bit more specific – while at no point pornographic I might mention the p-word once in a while and the photos at the end… or dear… well, it’s an abandoned sex museum, of course the exhibits are 99% erotica!)
As you may or may not know pornography in Japan is usually censored due to article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan which says that people who sell or distribute obscene materials can be punished by fines or imprisonment – meaning that genitalia are usually blacked out, white out or pixelated with mosaic. Article 175 was part of the original Criminal Code passed in 1907 and remains pretty much unchanged till this very day. It was the written manifestation of the Meiji Era efforts to reduce the publication of pornographic materials. Before the second half of the 19th century the shunga, erotic woodblock prints and therefore a type of ukiyo-e, were quite popular – and as explicit as modern western pornography; probably even more imaginative since the shunga not only showed traditional sexual acts, but also sex with animals, demons and deities. Some of them even showed sex with foreigners… And I guess that’s where the worldwide image of weird Japanese porn comes from. Well, that… the used panties vending machines and of course the anime series Urotsukidoji, famous for inventing tentacle rape, creating a whole genre with just one extremely disturbing scene…
With that being said there was no pornography found in the abandoned Japanese Sex Museum – only a couple of paintings (some of them in a special room with black light lamps), softcore photos (e.g. Playboy Centerfolds), a couple of mannequins as well as lots and lots of wooden and stone sculptures; dozens of them, to be accurate. Sculptures of penises, vaginas, combinations of both, couples in the act, buttocks, masturbating animals, priests, deities, demons and whatever you can imagine. In one room there was a forest scene with penis shaped mushrooms. Or mushroom shaped penises. Your guess is as good as mine. It was almost impossible to open your eyes without looking at a phallic symbol.
While two or three rooms were completely trashed (basically the entrance and the exit areas as well as the offices upstairs) some of the exhibition area’s ceiling was quite moldy, but still in good shape. Those huge statues must have been insanely heavy, especially sculptures like the stone penis with a length of almost two meters, and let’s be honest: Who would actually hit a giant stone vajayjay with a sledgehammer or tip over a couple of marble dicks? Even the most ruthless vandal respects those symbols!
Sadly that didn’t apply for the female models. The main exhibits in the last room were stolen (or “taken to security” by some previous explorers…) a year or two ago. One was a wax model of the famous European softcore erotic character Emmanuelle, the other one was a replica of Marilyn Monroe – both presented in slinky poses behind now broken glass. The already mentioned pamphlet / flyer featured photos of both wax figures and they looked pretty amazing. Even more so on the already mentioned Japanese blogs I saw a couple of years ago. When the museum was still open to the public the wax figures were scantily dressed and well-lit behind glass, but once it was abandoned the new visitors had less respect and undressed both Marilyn and Emmanuelle to show lower body parts that were out of sight before – and surprisingly both models were not as anatomically impaired as a Ken doll.
The left behind mannequins on the other hand were exactly that: Rather gender neutral below that waist and more or less what you can see at every clothing store when the clerks redress the shop window dummies. Of course they were all (partly) dismembered and slightly damaged, but they were basically normal mannequins… except for the really disturbing “Sleeping Beauty” one, which had vibrators mutating out of her nipples.
The main challenge from a photography point of view was the fact that 80% of the museum was pitch black, which meant that I had to take every shot with a tripod and illuminate every photo individually with my flashlight; similar to what I did at the *Lost Subterranean Shrine*.
With a sheer endless amount of statues and the time consuming process of taking photos Michael and I spent a whopping four hours at this fascinating location. Like I mentioned at the beginning, we both had high expectations about the abandoned Japanese Sex Museum and they were not only met, but exceeded. This haikyo is without the shadow of a doubt one of the best abandoned places in Japan and it would be a place worth visiting anywhere in the world. I just hope that future visitors will treat the location with the same respect Michael and I did so it will put a smile on the faces of urban explorers for decades to come…
(If you don’t want to miss the latest article you can *like Abandoned Kansai on Facebook* and *follow this blog on Twitter* – and of course there is the *video channel on Youtube*…)
Addendum 2012-09-10: If you liked this article you might enjoy the abandoned *Japanese Strip Club*, too…
Addendum 2012-11-27: I just posted an article about another abandoned Japanese sex museum: *Hokkaido House Of Hidden Treasures*
Addendum 2013-05-09: Two months later I revisited the museum – *click here for more photos and videos*!
Addendum 2014-07-11: According to a friend of mine the museum has been demolished a while ago – R.I.P.!
Great pics and commentary! Some of the museum looks like it could still be operational, the mold on the ceiling aside.
Thanks, Mike! I guess you could re-open the museum after a couple of weeks and some renovations – especially the entrance and exit really need some work, but the main exhibit area indeed was in surprisingly good shape; neither Michael nor I expected that. When I took the video and there was another part and another part I really wondered how big the museum was.
This place looks interesting! Strange that the owner didn’t think of taking them to his own house after closing though. Not that I would have done that but… it’s his hobby, right? 😉
Hey Jordy, I guess most of the exhibits were too heavy to just take them home, but you know how it is in Japan… The things we find at abandoned places here is pretty amazing. We didn’t find any private rooms at the museum, so maybe it was just a place of business, most likely with more than one owner? If my Japanese was any better I probably would have taken more time to find out more details – so I just went ahead with what I got and left everybody with that little amount of uncertainty I felt when taking the video at the museum.
Great writeup man, and extremely prompt too! I’ll see if I can wade through the hundreds of pictures to get my report up :). Was a pleasure exploring with you as always.
Thanks, Michael!
After we went to the Maya Hotel almost two years ago I had some sort of a writer’s block regarding that location for a very long while, this time it was kind of the opposite. It took me two lunch breaks to go through the photos of the museum (with me just selecting photos, not deleting any) and the evenings of Wednesday and Thursday (as well as the early nights…) flew by thanks to research and writing. Now I’m looking forward to a relaxing rainy weekend! 😉
I can’t wait to see what you did with the mannequins. You showed me the raw material, but I’m always impressed with your thoughtful way of post-production!
The photos turned out great considering how dark it seemed. I enjoyed your commentary too! By the way, do you have any favourite haikyo websites that you don’t mind recommending?
Hey Florian! I just discovered you blog roughly a month ago or so (I wonder if you’ve noticed the new USA IP vists, lol). I feel like its one of the best Haikyo English-sites out there!
This is one of your best updates yet-so weird but fascinating! I wonder if that dog statue is supposed to be an “penis guardian”? lol
I’m awaiting your next update so impatiently now! Keep up the great work! 😀
Hey Heather – thanks a lot for your kind words! Being German and never having lived in an English speaking country I’m not always sure if it’s 100% correct what I’m writing, so it’s really comforting to hear that my articles can compete with those of all the native speakers out there.
Exploring the abandoned sex museum was a great experience and the article about it came naturally. (The bad pun was not intended…)
It was great to see that Sex Museum in the abandoned state. The last time I drove by it was very much in operation. The museum’s gift shop did not have an entrance fee and you could sort of look around the corner of the entrance turnstile and see a bit of the tacky exhibits. That peek was waaaay more than I wanted to see (over the years I have been to several sleazy Japanese sex museums that are normally attached to Shinto Fertility Shines).
Maybe I should start visiting open sex museums just in case they get abandoned one day – I’m sure it’s quite interesting to see them changing that drastically…
It’s good to hear that I was able to bring back some memories – that barely ever happens unless I explore a former military base or an abandoned amusement park.
thanks for like of my post on Len Lye’s experimental films in http://www.collabr8.wordpress.com because it’s brought me to your facinating blog. I’m looking forward to browsing more when i get some time. I love the way car culture has embraced phallic symbolism more overtly recently with the whole truck nuts phenomenon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_nuts
I see them hanging off the back of utes. Maybe this collection/museum could find sponsorship from a wealthy car enthusiast (Petersons Museum or similar).
Hi eneferri,
I became more and more interested in filmmaking recently, so I am trying to educate myself on the topic as widely as possible.
Funny you mention truck nuts, because usually it’s the Japanese being accused of glorfiying weird sex things – yet here you have the States and truck nuts…
I am really happy to hear that you like my blog! Please come back once in a while as I am sure I will continue blogging for a couple of years.
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What a place to have wandered around in! I envy you two. This is exactly the kind of post that I would have liked to see Freshly Pressed. 😉 What is porn to one is art to another. As a Dutch Japanophile who has painted erotic Japanese art, I’m happy to know the difference.
Interesting that the museum was abandoned and so many of the objects left there. It’s like a natural museum of a museum now.
Thanks for posting, I’ll be checking your site!
Putting all photos in one gallery disqualified me quicker for Freshly Pressed than the sexual content. But that’s okay. Urban exploration is kind of a niche hobby and Abandoned Kansai already is way more popular than I ever dared to hope! Nevertheless it would be nice to be featured one day…
Whenever I think of the Japanese Sex Museum I have to think of the Boston Legal episode “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” and Professor Clifford Cabot’s Cabinet of Sexual Curiosities… One person’s porn is another person’s erotica – and this museum was actually quite tasteful, except for some magazine photos at one of the walls.
Wow! what are the chances of running into people when you come to places like these?
Relatively low – I spent two times four hours there and I never saw or heard anybody, though the sex museum is in the middle of an onsen town. When I visited the sex museum in Hokkaido though I could swear that I heard footsteps from the upper floor when exploring the lower one…
Has this place definitely been demolished? I’m going to Hokkaido soon and would like to find it if there is still something left? (Or any other places in Hokkaido)
This one wasn’t in Hokkaido… But to the best of my knowledge both of them are gone for good.